


The Storm

by steadfastasthouart



Series: Watford without Watford [6]
Category: Fangirl - Rainbow Rowell, Simon Snow series - Gemma T. Leslie
Genre: (but Baz wants it bad), (that last one is a tease), Accidental Voyeurism, Adventuring, Apples, Dancing, F/F, F/M, Imprisonment, M/M, Mirrors, Rescue Attempt, Sex Talk, Sidekicks, SnowBaz, SnowBaz Humdrum threeway?, back where we started (but with way more smooches pretty much all around), catacombs, cave art, fleeting allusions to rough sex, loose ends, magic!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-22
Updated: 2015-05-26
Packaged: 2018-03-25 05:45:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 17,794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3798961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/steadfastasthouart/pseuds/steadfastasthouart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Simon leaves his safe hideaway in search of Penelope; Baz comes along. There are woods and merwolves and a little blood and the constant conflict of heroism and lust.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Into the Murk

“Sit on my back.”

“Pardon?”

“You heard me. Sit on my back.” Simon had been anxious all day, and the elegant surroundings were starting to feel like a gilded cage. He'd spent the afternoon trying to relax in mindless exercise. It hadn't worked. Jogging and jumping in place were too boring, and after several minutes of the doorway pull-ups, during which Baz had watched from the far side of the suite with distant bemusement, he had strode over, lifted Simon down, and flung him across the bed.

It was true that the ensuing hand-to-hand had temporarily distracted him almost entirely from the question of where the fuck Penelope had gone.

Now, though, Simon's muscles were itching with inactivity. He'd huffed through a few sets of push-ups, but the anxiety was still there. He needed resistance.

“Crowley, Baz. Just help me out, okay?”

Buttoning his cuffs, Baz raised an eyebrow but obliged. “How? On the shoulders? Your arse?”

Simon grunted at the weight. “However. Back.”

Baz chuckled above him.

He really wasn't that heavy, Simon reflected. He could have lifted a much larger man. Still, after twenty reps, his muscles were burning and he was gulping for air, so that felt like some success.

“You can get off now.”

“I rather enjoy it here.”

“Scarper.”

Baz settled beside him on the floor to tug on his shoes.

“Why the shoes? Going out?” It was a joke. When Simon had asked Baz to hide him from the Watford leadership council, he'd expected some decrepit fairy-tale cottage in the woods full of spiders and dust—definitely _not_ the poshest hotel in Hertfordshire. But here they'd been, hiding in tastefully muted opulence, for a week now. Simon knew Baz crept out at nights, but neither of them had left during the days—with excellent room service, the Pitch family credit cards, quite a lot of whiskey, and the irresistible availability of each other's bodies, they'd had no good reason to risk an excursion that could lead to Simon's capture.

“Seems likely.”

“What for?”

Baz rolled his eyes. “It's clear you're in a swivet over Bunce, Snow. I've seen you stew enough times to recognize the signs that it's coming to a head. I predict we leave within the hour.”

It was true. Simon had felt those signs himself: his chest tightening and his guts spiraling with worry. Penelope hadn't written in nearly two days, which was wholly unlike her, and from her last email, he had to assume she could be under the power of his nemesis— _magic's_ nemesis: the Insidious Humdrum. 

Still, just to spite Baz, Simon showered and insisted they both dine on very fresh room-service sushi, and attempted to appear calm. Rain pounded against the windows and puddled in the cobblestone courtyard below.

He finally gave in and checked his email around 8:30. A little later, when he realized he was hitting Ctrl + R over and over and gritting his teeth, he shook his head. Fuck it.

 _All right, Pen,_ he typed. _I'm coming after you._

“Ready?” he asked Baz, who was leaned back in a sleek midcentury chair, doing a pretty good impression of a person reading.

Baz snapped his book shut. “If you insist.”

“Better bring your wand.”

* * *

“Want to say where we're headed,” Baz inquired in the cab, his long arm draped around Simon's shoulders, “or do you enjoy having the upper hand for once?”

Simon hadn't considered that Baz wouldn't know. “We're going to campus, of course. To the moat.” He looked piercingly at him. “Don't you intercept everyone's messages?”

“Not everyone's, Snow. Just the ones that might put our hero at risk.”

The steadiness of his gaze was a bit much for Simon's knees. “Gods, you sap. Has all the knobbing drained the Baz out of you?”

Perhaps because Simon actually sounded kind of disappointed about the lack of bite, Baz refrained from answering, and instead gazed aloofly out the window for the remainder of the cab ride.

Simon asked the driver to pull over when they reached the river. He patted his empty pockets, recalling suddenly that other than his wand, his only possessions were ones Baz had picked up on a foray back to the RAF base where they'd been staying. No wallet, no phone—just a few pairs of clean clothing. Instead, Baz handed a few folded notes over the seat.

“I considered tucking a bit of money in your pockets,” Baz mentioned drily, when they'd got out into the drizzle, “but thought it might make you feel a kept man.”

 _Oh, you can keep me, Baz_ , Simon thought. Recalling the soft sheets of their enormous hotel bed, he said, “You've kept me quite well enough in my pumpkin shell.”

“No pumpkins here, Snow. Now, have you made a plan, or shall we rush the place in your usual ill-considered manner?”

* * *

For whatever reason (oh, all right—the eternal appeal of Baz), Simon hadn't tried magic since the night of the Humdrum. Now, on the banks of the Colne, where Penny had said she saw GG's _Twinkle twinkle_ under the water (and with Baz's mockery fresh in his mind), he decided the prudent course of action might involve a quick test of magic.

Dipping his wand hand into the river, he tried it out. “ _Twinkle, twinkle, little star_ ,” he intoned, but nothing happened. Pinchbeck. Further up the bank, Baz was watching with what appeared to be some certain derision.

Simon plunged his head into the current. His head prickling with the cold, he chanted the spell a second time, but despite his careful enunciation, the words burbled in the water. Simon was shocked when it worked: a bright spot of light erupted from the end of his wand and floated like a luminescent jellyfish a few meters away.

He reared up from the water triumphant.

“Did you see?” he chortled with relief that he still had it. “Your boyfriend, the magician!”

Baz's incredulous glare was almost convincing.

* * *

The Humdrum sucked like a whirlwind, circling and dragging them toward the school as they traversed the woods that separated the moat from the river. Simon had tracked Baz through these woods so many times that he fell behind by habit, dropping into the damp, leafy shadows on quiet feet. The eerie void of Watford wriggled like tentacles inside him. At least this part, following catlike Baz through the trees, was familiar, in an admittedly-creepy sort of way.

Once he noticed what Simon was doing, though, Baz turned and bared his teeth. “Keep up, Snow.”

Simon tried to laugh. “Tired of being stalked?”

“Tired of the charade. You can't rightly call it stalking, the way you clatter about.”

As he drew closer, Simon realized that Baz's fangs were out. “You're hungry?”

“Not very.”

“But the fangs?” Simon felt his heart pounding with exertion and nervousness. He remembered the emptiness he'd felt each of the other times he confronted the Humdrum, yet here he was plunging into its nest like a man with a death wish. And beside him was Baz, now with those long, gleaming teeth that never failed to stoke the flames of Simon's desire. (Sometimes, at the shuddering moment he entered Baz, the fangs would pop out and Simon would erupt. It would've been embarrassing if it weren't an involuntary sexual reaction to another involuntary sexual reaction. And anyway, he never left Baz wanting.) (Well, maybe they _always_ left each other wanting, even as they sprawled panting across each other after.) But this was not the time.

Baz growled, very low. “You really ought to recognize the signs by now, Snow. Even if I couldn't feel your pulse vibrate the air from twenty feet off, or smell the salt on your throat, or hear the infinitesimal shiver in your vowels, I still possess the basic human intellect to conclude—based on your dismal history with the Humdrum, your infantile sense of personal responsibility, and the actual gravity of our mission—that you are likely _frightened_ by what we're about to do. Piece it together.”

“Are you trying to tell me you're scared, Baz?” The idea was unthinkable. It had literally never occurred to him. Baz got peevish, bored, sarcastic, harsh, demanding, insatiable—Simon shivered, recalling that last one— _no! focus!_ —but not afraid. Nothing scared Baz. Did it?

Baz sneered. “I am _trying_ to tell you to pay attention.” 

They walked on, Simon doing his best to pay attention to the shadowy figure stalking at his side, but the vacuum of the Humdrum seemed to yank his thoughts away. His mind felt hollow and focused—all Watford, all emptiness. It crowded out his vision. Stumbling on a root at the edge of the woods, he grabbed for Baz, who caught his fall. “I can't, Baz. I'm sorry. I can't see anything but what we have to do. I can't even see you.”

Baz held Simon to him, longer than he needed to. “Then I'll keep my eyes open.”

“Can you shove me in the moat when we get there?”

“We'll jump together.”

“Baz, you don't need to come in with me. I'm scared... ”

“You're always scared,” Baz said wryly, licking Simon's neck, grazing him—so ephemerally that the touch tingled in Simon's feet—with his hard middle teeth. Never the fangs. Baz was always so careful with him.

Simon tried to argue— _I'm no coward!_ —but Baz continued: “Without fear, a doer of brave deeds is just a fool. But you're afraid to act, and you fling yourself into the fray anyway because you know it's right.” Even with the wretched Humdrum griping his guts, this was marvelous stuff. Too marvelous. Stuff he didn't deserve. “That's why the masses adore you, Snow. That's what makes you a hero.” 

“But it's different this time,” Simon protested. _What if I can't get Pen back? What if something happens to_ you _?_

“It's different,” Baz concurred, and now Simon felt the tremors in those iron-strong arms that clutched him, a subtle tang in the familiar resin smell of Baz's skin, a desperate yearning in their clothed loins, and deep below, that word: _adore_. “I suspect I'm finally ready for a lesson in courage.”

* * *

Simon couldn't see the moat, nor the stars that might outline the black emptiness that was the Watford School of Magicks, nor Baz at his side. His vision had gone entirely. All he could count on were the long, strong fingers that clenched his left hand, and the wand in his right.

“Jump as far as you can,” Baz said. “Let's get to the middle. Be ready.”

Simon tried to count down, but Baz cut him off. “Now.”

Together, they leapt out over the water. The splash must have been enormous—not at all secretive. But they weren't here to sneak. They were here for a confrontation, and the moat was as good a place as any to announce themselves.

Underwater, Simon's brain cleared a bit. The chill was immediate and intense, and Simon's sight recovered quickly enough for him to spot movement in the dark water just beyond them.

A sharp pain slashed the wrist of Simon's wand-hand. Shelley's shame, he wasn't going to end the night as merwolf-food.

“ _Good fences make good neighbors!_ ” Simon burbled, trying to ignore the chunk of skin that tore away when he jerked his hand from the clenched teeth, and swung the wand in an arc around himself and Baz. A chain-link cage appeared, barricading them on all sides. Meanwhile, Baz had cast several little jellyfish lights that floated merrily inside the cage with them and revealed the gnashing jaws of the frustrated merwolves who struck the fence that surrounded them.

Grinning at Baz, Simon was surprised to see that he didn't look pleased. In fact, his expression was nearer one of panic. After a moment, the metal cage jounced against the ground, and Simon understood what a daft move he'd made. He had trapped them in a cage underwater with no air.

What in the name of Pythagoras was that spell?

Baz was trying not to take in water—his cheeks puffed and his face was acquiring a strange set of colors, green and blue in this odd underwater light.

The spell. Simon's lungs still held a little breath. He needed to think of the spell now before his mind started to go red. _Air one's soiled linens_ ? _Build castles in the air_ ? _Come up for air_?

“ _A breath of fresh air_!” he exclaimed, finally remembering, and pointing his wand at Baz. “ _A breath of fresh air_!” Two small vessels appeared, as fragile and translucent as blown glass, with thin tubes attached. Simon tucked one breathing-tube into Baz's mouth, then the other in his own, and drew in deeply. The air tasted pure and vivid. He smiled at Baz and was relieved to get a knowing sneer in return.

“I suppose I ought to have thought of that in advance,” Simon said through the water.

“That wouldn't be your way, would it?” Breathing again, Baz reached to smooth Simon's hair, which he could feel floating manically above him. Swirls of red blood jetted out from Simon's wrist. Baz caught his hand. “ _Blood is thicker than water_ ,” he intoned quietly, pointing his wand, and the flow ceased. “Now, let me do something about this terrifying death-cage.”

With a few flicks of his wand and some spells that Simon would have sworn were _not_ meant to work this way (like _a stitch in time_ , which everyone knew was a chronology spell, not armor), Baz had done away with the cage and conjured wolf-proof suits that were quite snug and warm in addition to repelling the beasts, and that happened to look rather like something an aviator might have worn a century earlier. 

Simon cursed himself for getting excited by the sight of lanky Baz in his slick, buckled jacket and boots. George Gordon. They were on a mission, not a date. But even with lives on the line, it would be a disservice ( _to himself? to the love gods?_ Simon wondered, seeing the crap in his own logic) to deny that lean form its due regard.

“Are you surveying my posterior?” Baz inquired disbelievingly.

Simon thought about denying it, but instead he just shrugged assent. Flanked by merwolves, arms jutting to his sides, Baz looked like a vintage superhero. There was no point pretending otherwise.

Plus, Simon was pretty sure he was figuring out what got Baz hot, and the artless charms of a grin or a shrug seemed to rank high on the list. Baz quirked a dark eyebrow. If they were in bed right now, Simon reckoned, this would be exactly the moment he felt the blood surge into Baz's cock. But they weren't in bed, they were in the depths of a murky green moat, fully clothed, and ringed by deadly predators. And Baz appeared to be saying something.

“Sorry, what?” Simon asked.

“I said, what's next? I don't suppose you mean for us to just wait here until the Humdrum arrives.”

Simon felt foolish.

“Actually, that's the best I'd come up with,” he admitted.

Baz shook his head in disgust. Simon could almost read his thoughts: _David Devant, this golden boy expects the war to come to him._

Simon just looked at Baz and grinned. “It usually works,” he said.

Baz gazed skyward, as if to seek divine assistance with his idiot partner. Simon glanced up too. Fathoms above, the surface rippled—perhaps it was raining again.

“I refuse to wait for an ambush,” Baz resolved, reaching to grip Simon firmly by the forearm. “Hold on.” Gesturing grandly with his wand, he cried, “ _Après moi, le déluge!”_

_  
_

 


	2. I Looked Up for the Sun

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the darkness deep below Occupied Watford, survival means keeping a stiff upper lip. Also, catacombs sex.

She had all the people, and none of them. It was dark and damp here, and terrible, and she did not feel at all brave.

If you haven't been in an oubliette—and Houdini help you if you have—you may not understand their basic architecture. The worst oubliettes are no better than a claustrophobic well-shaft with a grate up top, into which some wretched prisoner might be lowered to stand, embraced on all sides by relentless stone, until her captors took pity or she died of neglect.

Fortunately, if the Watford fortress had been home to torture, it had at least been of a less passive sort, and the Watford oubliette was broad and nearly grand—a single domed room like a sunken cathedral ten floors below the school, entered through a small round door that separated the floor of the lowest passage in the catacombs from the peak of its high ceiling, and devoid of any characteristic feature except for the rough chisel marks that still textured the rock from which the place had been hewn. A tiny antechamber held a rudimentary toilet.

It was very dark.

A few of them had sources of light—an electric torch, a few emergency candles, a lighter—and when the panic rose in their throats, they'd light one for a few minutes just so they could see, again, the confines of their space and each other's real human faces. Haggard though those faces were, they were still some consolation. So were the unceremonious tubs of food heaped against the wall: you wouldn't leave so many provisions—cheese and apples and crackers and water—for people you intended to kill. Would you?

They talked constantly.

In the dark, a moment's silence felt like abandonment. Even though Georgiana and Niall still had their natty sports watches, it was impossible to keep to a regular schedule without any light for a cue. On waking, the first thing any one of them did (after remembering where they were, what they were doing there, why they couldn't reach that damned bedside light and why this bed was so back-breakingly hard and rocklike) was to whisper, “Who's up?”

Agatha did this now. From around the room, whispers returned: “Fiona.” “Osiris.” “Georgiana.” “Lu.”

She was surprised to hear the last name. They all slept with someone else—as the only two here not dating, she and Lucinda had gratefully accepted the comfort of each other's companionship in sleep. This time, she'd fallen asleep with her head in Lucinda's lap, and waking up, had thought the cool hand on her shoulder belonged to a person still drowsing.

“Time?” Agatha whispered. From several meters away, the tiny green light of Georgiana's watch flashed briefly.

“Four in the morn,” Georgiana whispered back. 

Agatha didn't know why she always asked. No time felt good. Willing herself not to cry about it, she shook a little instead, quietly, into Lucinda's lap, and caressed the once-magical mirror she still carried in her pocket. Lu raked gentle fingers through Agatha's hair.

“Enough sleep,” Lucinda declared. “Kiss your loves awake. It's apple party time.”

“ _Sweet Circe_!” Fiona exclaimed with delight. 

Apple parties had been Lucinda's idea. They'd had the first a day or so ago, it seemed, although no one had noted the time or date, and they'd had a few since. Apple parties meant everyone gathered together by the provisions and sat in a tight circle, knees touching knees, and played silly party games and told stories and recited poems and did all the things one might around a campfire except in the absolute pitchiest of pitch-black. Also, everyone ate apples.

Agatha pulled eight apples from the bin and handed them around as people felt their way into the little circle. Carys and Niall were crabby about having been woken, but they'd feel better in a moment with the crunch of crisp fruit and the sweet warmth of sugar in the mouth.

Penelope seemed less upset than the others. In fact, she'd been unusually malleable these last few days, seemingly eager to please. This time, she posed the first question.

“Do you suppose anyone's ever snogged in the catacombs?” Penelope mused. A chorus of incredulous laughter answered her. “Crowley,” she said, clearly taken aback. “Shed some light, will you?”

So they went around the circle telling about those trysts, as daring fourth- and fifth- and sixth-years, when the thrill of the foreboding tunnels gave them the courage to go for that first kiss, or perhaps something a bit more.

Agatha coughed delicately. A bite of apple had caught in her throat.

“Is this, like, a thing?” Penelope demanded after Lucinda and Georgiana and Osiris had told their stories. “Is this what everyone was doing on those dates?”

“Pretty much,” Carys affirmed. “You know I started Watford in fifth-year, and I can't count the number of people who asked if they might 'show me the catacombs.'”

Next to her, Fiona clucked. “Oh, you're sooooo popular.”

“But I didn't say yes!” Carys protested. “Well, not always.”

“Bigger question,” Georgiana interjected cheerfully, “is how many people have shagged down here.”

Again, Agatha coughed. Dratted apple.

“Is that Agatha?” asked Georgiana. “Oh, do tell!”

It was not Agatha's way to kiss and tell; in fact, it wasn't her way to speak of herself any more than was absolutely necessary. Hadn't her parents made it crystal clear that  _charm_ meant attending to others, that one who prattled on about herself was, invariably, an insufferable bore? But here in the dark, to talk was to give hope, and to talk of fripperies was to diminish the enormity of their terror. So, she answered.

“All right,” she began. “It was in the middle of seventh year—just once, or maybe twice, I suppose, depending on how you measure that sort of thing.” She chuckled nervously and heard Niall laughing as well. It had been a pleasant surprise realizing that he was not the oaf she'd reckoned, actually quite bright but slow to show it. And who would need to speak with Georgiana for a girlfriend?

“'How you measure'?” Georgiana repeated. “What do you—”

Carys broke in excitedly: “Were you with a _girl_? Wait.” She broke off, whispering to Fiona (who whispered back rather louder, “ _Gowdie's guts_ , stow the jealousy, will you? There  _are_ other girls at this school besides me.” ) 

“Why would that matter?” Penelope inquired, and the others were rounding on her with answers about the many different methods by which a pair of humans might share sexual congress, and this was all getting far too squidgily specific for Agatha, so she continued.

“No, I was not with a girl, Carys. I suppose I'm just being a bit vague because Watford's not so large, is it? Of course we all know each other. And these weren't the proudest moments of my history. There were a few months there that were just so confusing, a few months where … where …”

“Gods!” Penelope interjected, aghast. “Was this when you and Simon--?”

“Simon was part of it.”

Penelope might have been gagging.

“Not the catacombs part!” Agatha continued, trying to set Pen at ease. “Simon's not the sort who takes girls kissing in dark underground chasms, is he?”

“Or not the sort to take girls kissing at all,” Lucinda commented. Word had got around.

“But if it wasn't Simon?” Osiris asked, the question left up to Penelope.

“It was Pitch,” Penny said definitively. “That's last winter's drama in a nutshell, Ag.”

“You're right,” Agatha moaned. “I feel just dreadful about it. I don't know why, but there were those months when I just felt I could never decide between those two boys. I wanted them both, I suppose, at once, but …”

“But you ended up with none,” Fiona finished. It wasn't cruel, just direct.

“Well, yes. But I was _going_ to say, 'but it turned out that two at once was a bit much to handle.'”

Georgiana and Niall guffawed. “I rather expect it was,” Georgiana crowed. “And that might explain your numbers trouble. Cover your ears, Penny; Agatha, are you about to tell us that not only have you _shagged_ in the catacombs, but it was, in fact, a catacombs romp for _three_?”

The hooting echoed off the walls and ceiling. Agatha was pretty sure her face was burning off.

“Not at all!” she laughed, helplessly, when they had calmed down. “I promise it was nothing nearly so exciting. Just that I couldn't manage so much want, and such odd possessiveness. It felt as if I were a proxy for something else they wanted to take from each other—and now, come to think of it, this is suddenly far less confusing than I'd thought. I thought those poor boys were victims to my indecision, but perhaps _none_ of us really knew what we wanted.”

“This story just got a whole lot less sexy,” said Carys, and everyone laughed. Everyone always laughed down here.

“Sorry!” Agatha was glad to have been cut off. She felt uncomfortably exposed. “Anyway, yes, end of story: I went into the catacombs with Basil once.”

“Once? Are we set on that number?”

“Oh, the number of _excursions_ was never under debate.” Perhaps she was coming to enjoy the hoots and hollers, at least a bit. “But can't we move on to someone else now? Who has a probing question?”

“I have!” said Lucinda. “Never mind the catacombs; who's had a go in this oubliette? Spill it, you.”

A great deal of apple-crunching and throat-clearing ensued.

* * *

“I _want_ to,” Penelope was saying.

“You're sure?” The voice was Osiris's. “I mean, you _know_ I do too, but it's not at all a conventional place for this sort of thing.”

“I don't care. It's been so many days, Osiris.”

“So many days trapped? Are you saying you think we'll die here so I'm your last chance at sex? Because I hate to think you'll regret it when we get out.”

“No,” Penelope hissed impatiently. “All right, fear of imminent death may be part of it, but I _meant_ it's been so many days I've had to sleep up against you, feeling you through your clothes, and I want _more_. I want you.”

“Oh,” Osiris laughed lightly. “In that case.”

Then there was a bit of muffled unzipping and pulling and the soft sounds of kissing. By now, Agatha was very much awake. Oh dear. Over the last few days, she had apparently managed to sleep through the various escapades of Georgiana with Niall and Fiona with Carys, but her luck had run down and she was cursed to hear this: Penelope's first time (and _was_ it her first?) with Osiris.

A moment later, Penelope whispered, just to check, “Who's up?”

Agatha could answer, she thought. If she was going to, this was the time. But then they'd know what she'd already heard, wouldn't they?, and how terribly uncomfortable that would be. Better to stay quiet.

Beside her, clutching her hand in sleep, Lucinda was breathing in soft puffs. No one answered.

“Oh, Penelope,” Osiris exhaled.

Agatha tried to close her ears to the caught breaths and whispered expostulations, the friction of bodies pressing into one another.

If she were a girl in the type of book where this thing happened, she thought, she could close her eyes and dream of boys. She hadn't had much experience with this, as dreaming of boys was a rather impractical pursuit, but she tried it now.

Unfortunately, thinking of Basil was no distraction from the lovemaking across the room.

Shabby though it was, she had to admit to herself that the only reason she'd dated Basil was the sex. Why else _would_ you date Basil? He could be such a prat. How had Simon tolerated him all these years?

At least it made more sense that Simon could put up with him _now._ Agatha shivered, remembering how she'd tugged him by the hand down those long, winding tunnels till they'd come to one of her favorite chambers—so ornate, so Gothic. (She hadn't mentioned, had she, that _she'd_ been the one to instigate the underground jaunt with Basil?) She had fitted the torch into a carved sconce, and when she turned back he was leaning against the far wall looking aloof and powerful and possibly amused by the lust in her eyes, so that she had no recourse but to step delicately across the dust-choked room, give him a delicate, cool, level-headed glance—likely belied by her flushing cheeks—and delicately set in to unbuttoning his smug shirt.

She had stopped him again on the way out— _but no_. Thinking about Basil while Osiris and Penny's increasingly incautious gasps filled the room was a recipe for some shameful memories that would be hard to shake.

Closing her eyes again, Agatha sought nobility.

There, in the darkest dark, was Archibald Firestein, whom she'd been seeing on and off since last spring. He was reedy and clear-eyed and possessed of a preternatural grace that lent some credence to the rumors that his family were descended from fairy-folk, if many many generations back. His very kisses were magical, like lemon-yellow and raspberry-pink sugar lumps, and his hands were smooth and gentle and made her feel oddly aflame. She _did_ like Archie, she decided. Oh, how he danced.

She drifted off remembering her last minuet with Archie, to the plinking tones of the Haydn, less than a month ago and one hundred feet overhead. Their feet had barely touched the floor. With Archie, she felt as though they might at any moment float up into the light.

* * *

Penelope and Osiris were kissing a lot today. (It _was_ day again; Niall had confirmed that it was early afternoon. Georgiana was still sleeping.) Agatha waited for Osiris's turn in the toilet to feel her way along the wall to Penelope.

“I wanted to say,” she said carefully, “that I'm sorry if I hurt you when I was with Simon. I've really loved spending time with you since the Occupation began, and I know it can't always be easy with my history. You both mean so much to each other.”

Penelope laughed. “Simon flies after heartbreak.” She paused. “Fortunately, I've already stocked up quite a pile of dislike for Pitch. Oh, I was so full of wrath for you last year, Ag. But you didn't hurt _me_.”

“So you and Simon never …?”

“We did kiss once,” Penelope said uncomfortably, “but it was more like an experiment. No, I wasn't _jealous_ , just angry. He's my best mate. I hate to see him sad.” She choked on the words, and Agatha reached for her hand. Everyone held hands in here, she realized. It didn't feel odd anymore.

“You miss him.”

“Yeah. But that's not it. You've all been too kind to say, but we all know it's my fault we're trapped here. I'm the one who loves Simon too much to see sense, the one who let the Humdrum lead us right into the bowels of his castle, to that infernal trap door.”

“It's _not_ your fault,” Agatha tried to argue, but Penelope kept on.

“You know it's true. I hear his voice when I sleep now, what he said when he took our wands and dropped the ladder. 'Down you go,' calm as day, and it wasn't till then that I even thought to speak up, but it was too late. I said 'Do I have a choice?' and he said, 'Of course not.' And I led us down here, to our eternal doom.”

“We followed you because we wanted to, Pen, or because it seemed right to us too. This isn't forever. It's just for now. Just till the others turn the magic back on.”

They were leaned against the rough stone wall, whispering very quietly and holding each other.

“Ag?” Penelope asked. “Can you handle something awful, if I tell you?”

“I suppose I'll have to.”

“Did you ever take the Architectural Enchantments course?”

“Of course not,” Agatha laughed, glad for a change of topic. “It's famously agonizing, crammed with minutiae, and entirely optional. It's a class for the Bunces among us.”

Penelope laughed a little too, but ruefully. “I wish I hadn't been such a Bunce as to take it,” she said. “We spent a week on Magical Fortifications. One of the things I learned about was the Watford oubliette. Did you know it's one of the only _true_ oubliettes in the world?”

Agatha suddenly felt cold. With her spare hand, she reached into the pocket of her trousers to clutch her mirror. She thought she understood, but she asked anyway. “What does that mean?”

“It means we're cursed. When the magic comes back, _Ils nous oublieront._ They will forget us.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter titles come from Smog's "Rock Bottom Riser," which is a really great song that is not at all thematically related to this story.


	3. Shattered in the Water

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When your boyfriend cannot make a plan to save his life, sometimes you have to take charge.
> 
> (We rejoin Baz and Simon in the latter part of [Chapter 1](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3798961/chapters/8460214), now from Baz's POV.)

Perhaps the design of the merwolf-proof suits had been a mistake. He had considered a baggy HazMat style, or something more like actual armor, or even foregoing body protection by charming the water around them to repel the beasts, but instead Baz had indulged himself in something that would draw the eye.

In fairness, he had made the suits in a complicated moment, with the new air still searing his frightened lungs and Snow's blood swirling like juiced rubies in the water around them.

He had had to be stern about that.

He had had to be measured, and serious, and wholesome.

He had had to mend Snow once again, because that boy wore bloody flesh wounds like some boys wore body spray—constantly, garishly, brazenly.

Given the circumstances, the snug suits were a very reasonable gift to himself. And, judging from Snow's stillness behind him, to Snow as well.

Hands on his hips, Baz turned to look over a shoulder at Snow. He tried to avoid eye contact, as he was pretty sure he'd allowed a few curls to escape Snow's tight, protective cap, and, well … he _knew_ what effect he'd been trying to create, and also knew that it would be beneath them to loiter in the depths of the moat when they ought to be out catching a thief.

Snow seemed to have no such compunctions. The look in those sparkling eyes was too much—as if he was proud to be caught looking.

Baz pulled a sneer. “Are you surveying my posterior?”

Simon just shrugged—a self-conscious, overdone attempt at casual. Against his will, Baz wondered whether the merwolf-suits would still work if one dropped trou.

_Christ, that my love were in my arms ..._

They desperately needed a plan, and right away.

“What's next?” Baz demanded, but even before Snow answered, Baz could tell from his bashful stance that he hadn't charted a course.

In a way, Snow's incompetence was an ecstatic relief. He felt the old disdain sweep through him; a vengefully pure befuddlement that hapless Snow could muck his way through any mire and emerge—scratched and obscenely bloodied, perhaps, but _alive—_ from the other side. As long as they'd known each other, Snow had been _followed by the fae_ , as they say. It had infuriated a younger Baz. _Why him?_ And it had built ghastly habits.

What torrential hubris. Snow could have offed them both just now with that colossally idiotic cage, and it would have served Baz just right for trusting in a bloke he _knew_ never thought more than two steps ahead.

In another way, though, that incompetence _was_ rather golden and blushing. Blushing under Baz's high-necked, critical stare. Baz let the sneer deepen.

Snow wanted it. Being here, where they could feel the Humdrum so clearly, even under the water, Baz kept recalling the night of the dance. That night, despite the stares and kisses—and yes, even after the moans—he hadn't quite allowed himself to believe that Snow could _really_ want him until the Humdrum had affirmed it, had said then that Snow was “starving for it.” The words had turned Baz fierce and raw. Reckless. Stupid.

Baz rather appreciated the Humdrum for that, actually.

Still, it would never do to be caught out in the moat with their armor about their ankles.

Not seeking inspiration but distraction, Baz looked away. Overhead, the rain was pounding down on the moat's surface. Suddenly, Baz knew exactly what to do.

“I refuse to wait for an ambush,” Baz said, grasping Snow and hoping he wouldn't protest. “Hold on.”

He'd remembered a stalwart old weather spell—one he'd only ever practised in miniature because it tended toward meteorologic extravagance, but right now he wanted to make a statement. He wanted to fling themselves at the Humdrum's doorstep. He wanted this blasted showdown to begin.

Rousing the waters with his wand, Baz bellowed, “ _Après moi, le déluge!”_

_* * *_

About them, the turbid green water of the moat swirled.

“Whoa, Baz,” Snow said, his escaped curls dragging across his face. “ _French?_ ”

“And submarine French, at that,” Baz shrugged. “If this works, let's keep it in mind for my graduation thesis.”

The vortex was picking up speed, hurling the lights and the merwolves away as the waters peeled back, leaving the boys in a pocket of air bounded by walls of seething water. Suddenly, the whole whirling mass surged forward down the moat. Trapped in the middle, cushioned by the air and water, they barreled around sharp turns and down straightaways, picking up speed till it seemed that they'd never survive the impact of stopping—that perhaps they would just shoot through endless laps of Watford's moat forever.

Then they rounded a bend, though, and they could see the way the water gathered and curved before them. It had located its target: an enormous iron grate mounted low in the moat's wall on the Watford side.

Sucking together its force into a giant crystalline sphere, the water slammed against the grate. Milliseconds behind it, the boys braced for a crash—broken bones at least, maybe punctured lungs—but the gate smashed open before them. The water dragged them through the ragged hole where the bars had been and propelled them along a maze of dark underground passages till they were rising and up above they saw a little light, then more, then were rocketing out in an enormous spray of water and landing with surprising ease on the cold hard stone floor of the Watford cathedral.

As the boys clutched at each other and struggled for breath, water continued to surge in waves from the ceremonial font. It flooded the choral box, the pews, the divination daises, the glossolalia chambers, of the ancient chapel.

At Baz's side, Snow steadied himself, wide-eyed to find themselves transported back to the heart of Watford's campus. “Never knew you had it in you, Baz.”

Baz barked a laugh. “Underestimate me at your cost, Snow.”

A few candles burned high in the chandeliers of the cathedral. In their low light, heavy shadows hid Snow; a few bright lines were barely enough to suggest the thick muscles under the coat, the ruddy snub of his nose.

Cheeky bastard that he was, Snow pulled Baz in for a kiss. “What's next?” he inquired.

Baz kissed back hard and said nothing.

Drawing away, Snow made a show of incredulity. He was a dreadful actor; it was physically uncomfortable to watch him feign surprise. “You _can't_ mean we're just going to _wait_ for the Humdrum to come to us?”

It was Baz's turn to grin. “I hear it usually works.”

* * *

It worked.

The Humdrum waded silently, sliding through the water that now reached past their booted knees in the sodden church.

Snow's grip tightened on his hand. Both boys reached for their wands as the dim shape loomed into view. Then Snow gasped.

Baz wasn't sure whether he or Snow was more horrified; the Humdrum had aged. Instead of a little boy, the figure grinning before them was an exact match for the 18-year-old Snow whose hand he held, right down to the breathing tube and earnest lips and dapper wolf-proof jacket.

 _Fuck._ This was going to be difficult.

* * *

“How is this possible?” Snow sputtered, raising his wand. Baz could feel the vibrations inside him; the Humdrum always seemed to find Snow's resonant frequency. _He could shake him to death!_ , Baz reminded himself, a little frantically because it was distinctly possible that he had gone off-course for a moment just now by locking foolish foolish eyes with the Humdrum.

Still looking at Baz, the Humdrum shrugged—an exaggerated version of Snow's little shoulder-raise.

Baz felt that shrug in his guts. _Abelard and Anselm_. He looked down, ashamed. Snow's grip was forcing his fingers together.

“I asked, how is this _possible_?” Snow was shouting. “You were small!”

The Humdrum's laugh clanged brassy and bright. “So were you, Simon.”

“But you were small just—just a week ago!”

“An element can exist in many states, depending on its surroundings.”

“So you're an _element_ now?” Baz heard the strain in Snow's voice, felt the tendons bulging in his wrist. “Like nitrogen? Like _hydrogen_?”

“I don't know why this confuses you. Your friends all seemed to understand.”

 _Your friends._ Baz saw the realization hit Snow like a sack of bricks to the face. Snow yanked forward, suddenly, faster than Baz was ready for. He was upon the Humdrum, knocking him back into the deepening water.

Snow jerked the Humdrum up again by the straps on its jacket. “Is that how you got them?” he demanded. “By looking like _me_? Where are my friends? What have you done with them?”

The Humdrum laughed again, so warm and full, like Snow's laugh.

But Snow wasn't laughing. He was humorless, his mouth a livid line. “What the fuck have you done with them?”

The Insidious Humdrum wrapped its strong arms around Snow's back and leaned close.

 _Crowley_ , Baz thought, feeling rooted in place a few paces back, even though he _wasn't—_ the magic he'd sewn in their suits and the conductivity of the water were strong enough that the Humdrum hadn't drained them like last time. Not yet. But this was a sight. Face-to-face with the Humdrum, Snow looked mirrored, except that his own face was contorted in fury whereas his reflection was placid, playful—almost dreamy. The Humdrum's nose settled against Snow's.

Caressing Snow's crazed face, the Humdrum whispered, “I've forgotten.”

The words' effect on Snow was magnificent. Baz thought he had seen Snow incensed before, in the scrubby deserts of his wrath, but that had been nothing to the anger Snow clearly felt for the Humdrum. This ferocity was scorched, sere; it obliterated everything else. When Snow spoke, his voice rasped like ash.

“You _wretched fucking absence_ ,” Snow hissed _. “_ You _void._ You _hopeless, worthless, parasitic_...”

The Humdrum hugged him closer, and closer, and then the two toppled back into the water that was lapping at Baz's waist.

They stayed under.

Baz dove. Underwater, he cast hasty lights.

Snow and the Humdrum were—well, Baz wasn't sure _what_ they were doing. It wasn't fighting, and it wasn't fucking, but it wasn't totally _unlike_ either of those. He and Snow tended to wrestle for dominance during sex, but this was different. This wasn't a game. No one, Baz thought regretfully, would end this struggle with the winner's hands tangled in his hair and a mouth full of victorious cock. (Sometimes he'd pretend he didn't have vampire strength, just so they could have a fair fight.)

That was really a shame. 

All this tussling made it very difficult to concentrate. Tucking the Breath tube back into his mouth, Baz pointed his wand.

He needed a little time.

“ _Hold your horses_ ,” he commanded.

The magic sizzled in the dark water before him. The two grappling boys froze in place, one's arm chokehold-tight around the other's neck, the other's hat flopping loose, hair afloat in curls.

Baz closed his eyes briefly to think.

He remembered Miss Possibelf's tutorials last year, before the madness had necessitated her removal from her post. She had taught things she oughtn't to have even _known_ ; the Mage had been most upset. Baz suspected that most of Possibelf's advanced students had been dosed with a hearty draught of _Never mind_ , but since witnessing that awful exorcism fourth year, he'd been too wary to accept anyone else's potions. Especially the Mage's.

You never knew when a little knowledge would come in handy.

The right spell was less complicated than you might expect, elegant in its simplicity. It would make his father proud.

Baz raised his wand, steadied it, and … his heart constricted—tighter, tighter, tighter, like gravity was crushing it into itself, a black hole. He couldn't do it. Not if he couldn't tell these boys apart.

He hadn't been sick since before the change came on, but the thought of harming Snow made vomit rise in his throat.

“All right. _Onward_. Snow, show yourself.”

The hatless boy raised a baleful head. “Obviously me here, Baz, getting choked out. Bit of help'd be nice.”

With a wave of his wand, Baz flung off the other boy, who'd been choking him.

“ _Crowley_ , Baz!” the other exclaimed. “You can't _buy_ that! I mean, _look_ at me, Baz.”

Baz looked at the boy's naked, pained face. Unmistakably Snow. It was confusing.

The water continued to gush up out of the ceremonial font. It was creeping up the lower panels of the chapel's stained-glass windows.

“I can prove it,” the boy with the hat said. “Let me show you it's me.” He stepped cautiously forward.

“All right,” agreed the first, from the floor, surprising Baz. “That's a good idea. You'll feel it. He's not human, Baz. He's all wires and tape and gauze, not human at all.”

The boy with the hat reached out an arm. Baz took it in his. He could feel the warm pulse, the raw open wound from the merwolves earlier, the thick muscles below. _Thank the gods._

He raised his wand again, pointing it at the hatless boy. The boy gaped back wide-mouthed. In his eyes, Baz saw the pain of one who's been absolutely betrayed.

“No! You didn't feel it? How could you not...?” he trailed off, red-faced and befuddled. “ _I know,_ Baz. I can do something he won't know—something only we know.”

Baz's brain felt a bit soft. Both boys were clutching for him now, reaching hungrily toward his hungry body, both appalled that he didn't know that he was he. Both Simons' eyes were the pummeled deep blue of exploding stars.

 _What if he didn't stop them?_ He didn't have to, really; why not allow this to play out to its logical end? There would still be ample time to differentiate the two after …

But those eyes. If all went to plan, one of those boys would still be his. If he knew that Baz would do anything to get more of him—would fuck his humanoid nemesis in front of him—well, that would be quite a test for a relationship that hadn't even tied off its first month.

A test, he thought. Of course. He needed a test, and he knew a good one. Giving himself no time to take it back, he twitched his wand toward the boys.

“ _Before and after_ ,” he said.

As the wand pointed to him, the boy with the hat rocketed backward through the water, slamming into the marble side of the font.

 _Praise Prufrock_ , the other didn't budge. This one had failed the test. Water animating his soft brown hair, he tossed Baz an appreciative look. He had to understand Baz's intentions, his need to tell them apart.

“Well met.” He cast his eyes back to the other one—even through the meters of water, you could see the spell taking effect, a heavy mass of years settling like mud into the boy by the font—the one who was Snow. Which meant this one, this beautiful, Snowlike being in front of him, was the imposter, the destroyer, the Humdrum. The Humdrum kept on. “We taught you about that one, didn't we? That it only works on living things.”

 _And it didn't work on you._ “So you're really not alive?” Baz wasn't sure why he was permitting himself to engage in casual conversation, but it might've had something to do with the way the underwater lights shimmered in this boy's eyes, or the twisting, visceral horror that accompanied even the smallest thought of harming anyone who looked like his roommate.

Even if he _knew better_. How much proof did he need?

The Humdrum nodded affably. “As I said, I'm elemental.”

“Well then,” Baz said, gathering up his strength and courage, “this should work.”

Ignoring the agonies that were ripping like a storm through his guts, Baz tapped the wand against the small bones of his own right wrist—once, twice, thrice—and when he looked up, the cheeky grin on the face of the Humdrum had begun to slide into something half-drawn and frightening. Palm-up, Baz gestured with both hands and the wand in a subtle and very precise combination—the complexity in this spell was invisible; it involved a cascading undulation in the hypothenar muscles along the sides of both palms—then gently leveled the icy point of the wand toward the Humdrum.

It looked at him with desperately open, begging eyes.

Baz cringed, gulped, said it anyway: _“Nevermore.”_

With the last syllable, Baz crumpled. He could feel the magic he'd used—bigger and rarer and less _allowed_ than any magic he'd used before, perhaps than anything he'd ever _done_ before (and he was definitely thinking about all that early Snow-bating and animal-mauling). He'd used the strongest, wildest, cruelest magic he knew, and he'd used it on someone who could be his … who could be _Simon_.

Even though his head knew better, even though he'd tested, he had watched the shock and abandonment in those cloudy eyes just now. In his truest heart, he could feel that he had done the unthinkable. He had cursed his roommate.

Baz clutched his arms around himself. The pain was tearing him to pieces.

He didn't even see the Humdrum melt into millions of tiny bubbles. They rose to the surface, popped, and were gone, like air.


	4. The Pieces Were Raining Down

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In saving Simon, Baz may reveal too much.
> 
> (Back-and-forth POVs here.)

“ _Before and after_.”

The spell was like a blow to his gut. It shot Simon off his feet and through the water till he crashed shoulder-first into the base of the chapel's fountain. _Mary Godwin,_ that was going to smart in the morning.

The spell descended on him from all sides at once, his flesh absorbing it like a page soaks in ink. He could feel it staining him through.

Simon was suddenly weak and tired. His joints hurt. He stretched his arms before him to assess the damage.

His hands were both thicker and leaner than they'd ever been. The skin looked worn and leathery, loose around the knobby knuckles and square-cut nails. Scars ran white across the palms. He tried to remember from what, and shuddered.

Distantly, as if from a dream of the past, he became aware of others. Squinting across the room—and _why_ was he underwater?—he tried to make out what was going on. Two slender men appeared to be flirting, sidling closer to one another. He smiled.

The shorter one cocked his head in Simon's direction for a moment. Simon could see warm brown curls that bobbed around his head. He feinted toward the other boy, as if coming in for a kiss.

The other, though, wasn't having it—Simon had thought wrong. _His_ body was rigid, tensed.

The taller boy drew his wand, and suddenly, despite the conflicting layers of age and memory, Simon knew exactly what he was seeing. He rubbed at his eyes—where _were_ his specs?—then reconciled himself to squinting.

The veils of cobwebbed time made it a bit vague, but he knew two things were certain: This wouldn't work, not entirely, that wasn't possible—not for him; but it would be some of the most beautiful magic Simon would ever see.

He couldn't look away; the purity of Baz's concentration shimmered in the water. Baz glowed—not like a nightlight, but like the last onion in the corner of a dark cupboard; like the one truth in a field of deceptions.

When Baz spoke, everything shattered.

Crystalline and dark, the magic surged from his extended wand to fragment the water that that surrounded them. Simon felt it stab through him at hundreds of points at once, in tiny tortures that vanished as soon as the signals had reached his brain. He couldn't look away. The magic spidered through the walls, nearly up to the chapel's high ceiling, which rose mere feet above the waterline.

Around the Humdrum, though, the magic didn't skitter away; instead, it burrowed, through and through and through, like the random orbits of electrons around a nucleus, till the Humdrum seemed more magic than not. Finally, when the whole thing was a shimmering mass of splintering magic, the Humdrum's form could take no more.

It broke into chunks, then again, then smaller, till the bits of magic-wrapped Humdrum were everywhere and the water effervesced with its particulate energy. Like bubbles in champagne, they coursed to the surface and disappeared.

Even knowing—as he had to know—that it wasn't enough, Simon's heart pounded. It was a blow. It would be years till the Humdrum could hurt them again.

* * *

Meanwhile, the largest of the stained-glass windows burst. Water flooded out of the church to drown the Great Lawn without.

Baz didn't seem to notice. He had flopped loose into the water; only the marble dais had prevented his being dragged out by the sudden current.

Feeling very old and stiff, Simon pulled his way through the surging water and wrapped his arms around the boy he had loved.

* * *

Baz opened his eyes when he felt the arms about him.

“Baz! It's all right, Baz. You did the right thing. It wasn't me.”

The voice was strange. It sounded like Snow's voice, but its timbre was too deep, the sound gravelly, like a much older— _oh._

“Snow,” he choked. Above him, a smile. The nose had broadened with age, the ruddy skin been engraved with wrinkles and scars, the boisterous hair gone streaky with grey. “ _Aleister_ , it's been a while, has it?” He could feel the blood pouring through him again, the hands unclamping, the skin cells coming back to life.

Snow laughed—a laugh that was shorter and harder than he'd expected, than he'd hoped. But it was a laugh. Baz felt almost warm.

“A long while,” he agreed soberly. “I'm not ready for you to see me like this, Baz.”

“It's not so bad,” Baz teased. “The lines lend you an air of distinction.”

Snow's eyes flashed. “Turn me back.”

Baz raised an eyebrow at the cold command. This Snow glowered at him, unmoved.

“Now.” The tone brooked no argument.

Baz yielded. "Only because I expect to see you so again.” Wrapping his right arm around Snow's back, Baz flicked the wand. “ _As you were_.”

Snow shook and quivered against him; when he started to moan, Baz pulled him in against his shoulder so that he wouldn't have to see.

The water had nearly all drained from the church now, and magic was thick in the air, spangly and cold.

“Snow,” Baz said, tugging off that ridiculous cap so that he could thread his hand into Snow's hair. “We've done it. We're back.”

Snow pulled away, blinking, his eyes refocusing. Thank Swedenborg, he was young again, and his unhesitating joy at seeing Baz forced Baz to shift away a bit, to buy just enough space that his heart would not explode.

Expanding like a new-hatched chick, Snow rose. “Baz?” he asked, reaching down a broad, hard hand, “Can we go outside?”

* * *

The heavy doors of the chapel swung easily on their charmed hinges to reveal a ghostly, storm-battered world. Dressed for the weather, Simon and Baz ventured out cautiously, hand in hand, across the Great Lawn.

Overhead, lightning cracked the night sky, turning the vaulting rain to white needles in its flash. The thunder followed too quickly to count.

The boys leaned together, tiny figures in the shadow of the towering fortress, and watched in awe.


	5. Then I Started Rising

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The magic's returning to Watford, from the dormitory towers above to the cavernous dungeons below.

**Below**

Last time Penny'd asked, GG said it was May 18. Nearly three weeks they'd been in this cavernous trap.

Gods, she was lonely. And bored. So terrifically bored.

Other than each other, their only entertainment in this dark room was rock. They'd taken to carving into the soft stone of the walls, creating patterns, designs, anything to distract themselves.

Niall was making an enormous maze on one wall; you could run your fingers over it in the dark, seeking your way through its contorted reticulations that wound around other people's projects. (He always asked very politely before moving into someone else's art space.) Lu's work was something obscure that felt rather like a mess of hash marks but that seemed to involve lengthy periods of muttery contemplation. Penny was carving favorite quotations; GG doodled flowers and many-pointed suns; Osiris had carved a mancala board into the floor, and sometimes they'd play there for hours with a small cache of saved apple seeds. Carys, who was probably the only really arty one of them, was sculpting Fiona in high relief, and Fiona posed with uncharacteristic patience, letting Carys paw first her face, then the stone, then her body, then the stone, till they felt the same.

And Agatha... well, Ag wasn't really playing this game. It was hard to tell exactly what she was on about. She'd spent the last few days hunched and whispering, almost like she was trying to cast spells; occasionally, when she thought everyone else was asleep, Penny would watch her squander a match's worth of light on looking into her little mirror. Right now, though, she was probably sleeping herself.

Lu still called them together to eat a few times a day, “because folk go bonkers without a routine,” but other than that, everyone's waking hours varied.

Penelope's arm was starting to hurt. Since she'd last woken up, she'd been perched precariously atop one of the food crates, carving words as high as she could reach. This quotation would eventually say, “stillness suspends vitality in balance,” but for now, it just said, “stillness su.” She wasn't eager to move on to that next s; the curves were finicky. Why'd she have to choose that line?

She'd already carved so many. Arcing across the room, there were bits of McKay and Plath, O'Hara, Brooks. In the very middle of the floor, where the column of light would fall if there were _ever_ light in the Catacombs above, she had started to carve “Rosemary, that's for remembrance. Pray, love, remember,” but then recalled Ophelia's ending, decided it too maudlin, and scratched it out, instead carving a few words of Sappho: “words which I command are immortal.”

She didn't want to hurt any feelings, but it needed to be said:

They might never get out.

* * *

**Above**

Since the return, they'd been mobbed. Any time the boys ventured outside their little room, they could expect adoring fans, wide eyes, questions. Consequently, they'd been spending most of their time in the room.

There was a lot to be said for it.

You could say, for example, that it was a tower room, that it offered a commanding view, that it held all their clothes and books and worldly possessions. You could say that it held their memories: framed school portraits of Baz's little sister and brother that stood like gilded soldiers on his tidy desk; a watercolor by Agatha tacked over Simon's bed; on his own cluttered desk, a teetering tower of loaned books from Pen that Simon was really for sure going to read one of these days. You could say that this room was the one place in the world that the two boys knew better than any other.

But if pressed to sing their room's praises, Simon and Baz would have been more likely to call out this: it featured a door, with a working lock, and it was theirs alone.

Oh, the fucking. It was marvelous. Nothing like the hushed and timid make-outs in the crowded hut at the RAF base, but also unlike that unabashed week of debauchery at the hotel. Here, they could be slow, and deliberate, and teasing; here, there was no rush, no pressure (because honestly, they were the heroes of Watford; who was going to scold them for truancy at this point?).

Every now and then, someone pointed out that a bunch of the eighth-year students hadn't returned yet, but whenever someone brought up those absent people—Penny, Agatha, Niall—you always felt a sort of warm surety that all was just as it should be; no need to trouble your mind on their account. So you didn't. If there were _reason_ to worry, surely you'd remember.

Here at Watford, Simon and Baz could finally relax into one another. Here, they were home.

* * *

The first time Simon had lain back against his own old lumpy pillow and realised that Baz was watching, through heavy-lidded eyes from their one armchair, he actually thought he might swoon.

“Did you ever watch me like that, before?” he asked, pressing up on his elbows to half-sitting.

“Constantly,” Baz said, surprised, wet dark hair clinging to his neck and to the brocade of the chair. It was their first night back in the room, and the boys' exhausted limbs hung heavy as sodden branches.

Early that morning, as the stormy sky lightened from black to almost-black, Baz had pushed Simon to talk about what he'd seen in his future when Baz had cast the  _Before and After_ spell. 

Shaking his head imperceptibly, Simon had clenched his jaw and refused to look Baz in the eye.

Baz had cajoled. “If I had had any idea it would distress you, I would have tried something else. Tell me.  _Please._ ”

“Forget it,” Simon had bit out. “It worked. You did what you had to.” Simon was already forgetting the details of that glimpse into his own future; all that clung to his mind was a sticky sense of resigned heartbreak. No good could come of troubling Baz with this sentiment, and anyway, the feeling was fading. Soon, he hoped, he wouldn't remember being any older than the 18 years on his national identification card, and his future could once again ring with the clear, round tones of promise. So long as he didn't talk about the dread, maybe it would disappear.

So he'd clammed up and instead tugged Baz close to his side as they huddled under the covered rear entrance of the fortress. The indignant anger flaring inside Simon was at the Humdrum, and at the future, and maybe even at future  _Baz—_ but definitely not at the brave, strong boy beside him.

That evening, finally reinstated in their own room, after the prior night's adventures and a long day's bureaucracy with the Watford School of Magicks' Leadership Council—all in sopping weather—they'd both been very glad to finally get a meal and a hot wash.

“No,” Simon shook his head, definite. Baz's claim that he used to watch Simon constantly was impossible. Baz had always avoided him, rejected him. To think otherwise was ludicrous. “I would have _noticed._ ”

Baz lifted an eyebrow in what looked like amused superiority. The chair's green made his eyes shine like stone.

“Really!” Simon protested. “I _would_.”

The brow quirked up a notch higher, and the edge of Baz's mouth turned down as if Simon were perhaps both stupid, smelly, or a bit of both. Simon contemplated him.

Under his roommate's scrutiny, Baz's lower lip slowly jutted outward in an exaggerated curl. Now he radiated disdain, disgust, incredulity.

Simon knew this look. It was one that made his guts shrivel, made him feel insignificant and hopeless and blisteringly angry because how the fuck dare Baz look down on him,  _still_ , after everything they'd—

Oh.

Baz was trying to show him something, wasn't he? He must think he was making a point. Was Simon supposed to believe that look of scorn had actually just been an angry cover for Baz's feelings for him? That Baz's repulsion had all been just a front?

The thought stretched the bounds of credulity, and Simon had to object. “Don't even try.”

Baz continued to sneer, cool and veiled.

“Do you know how many times I wanted to fucking pound you, Baz, for sitting there looking in judgment upon me, just like that? And now you want me to believe that the whole damn time you just wanted—“

“To pound _you_?” The sneer was gone, the eyes flickering bright again. 

Simon shook his head. Baz meant it, or at least he thought he did.  _Years_ of wanting, though?

It was really very difficult to reconcile this place, this cozy little wood-and-stone room where he'd pined for basically eons, with a Baz who was splayed lazily in that armchair, no pretense of books or laptops or notebooks, looking at him with a hazy languor that Simon was pretty sure was like 80% lust. He'd assembled a decent collection of field research over these last few weeks; he was starting to recognize Baz's tells. They might not be open books to one another yet, but they were already full of bookmarks and annotations and dog-ears.

Baz chuckled. Simon loved Baz's chuckle so much. How had he managed to block it out for all these years?

“I watched you all the time, Snow. Do you want to know what I thought of?”

Simon plumped the pillow behind his head and lay back again.

“If you're telling.”

“I thought of a great many things.” Baz's fingers spread generously wide on the arms of the brocade chair. “For one, I thought often of your nose, which cuts up rather abruptly at the end. Do you know that when you're reading in bed, it catches the light in such a way as to appear a sort of target? I believe that I developed an extraordinary repertoire of disapproving looks to mask my admiration of your nose.

“I thought also of your never-ending series of injuries, a perhaps unreasonable number of which seemed to require shirtlessness. I would never have suspected that gauze dressings would cause anyone arousal. However, you may have observed that I tended to absent myself when you were attending to the bandages.”

“Bloody irritating, too,” Simon laughed, remembering. “Remember that time the ogre ripped into my shoulder and I had to treat the wound with a golden-nettle tincture every hour to prevent the flesh from putrefying?”

“Gods, do I _remember_?” Baz lifted a slender hand to clutch at his hair in mock distress. “It was torture.”

“It _was_ torture,” Simon said indignantly. “I could barely stretch my other arm around to drip the stuff in, and it burned like fire and it was all I could do to not scream. And you just loomed there in that chair pulling faces at me and never offered once to help.”

“As if you'd have accepted an offer of help from me.”

“I might've done. I was pretty desperate.”

Baz shook his head, unwilling to consider it. “You would've punched me the second it hurt you. Anyhow, I did  _try_ to be of assistance.”

“No. Name one single way.”

“I suggested you get Bunce in to doctor you.”

Simon rolled his eyes. “You mean the time you threw off the bedcovers in the middle of the night and growled,  _If you must whinge like a baby, perhaps you should seek out a nursemaid._ ”

“ _Crowley_ , Snow,” Baz said with a hitch in his voice. “It was three in the morning and I'd awoken to you bare-chested, contorted, and moaning. Any response but anger might have lured me beyond my own control.”

“Oh,” Simon grinned, getting it. “You do like it when I moan.”

“Yes.”

They studied each other across the room. The low light of the table-lamp illuminated the tip of Simon's nose, the tilted edge of his brow. Baz pulled his legs up underneath himself in the chair.

“More than anything, Snow,” he said, arms wrapped about his knees, direct and serious, “when I sat here, I always thought about that bed of yours, and thought that though we would share this tiny space for eight entire years of our lives, _that bed_ was one place I would never, ever be welcome.”

Baz was rarely this open, this unguarded. His confession settled heavily around them; Simon tried to swallow the lump of residual sorrow in his throat. “I can see why you'd sneer.”

Simon scooted himself up so that he was sitting again, flipped the sheets back, was grateful they happened to be fresh, for once—no stale old socks or stray apple pips or Aero wrappers lost in the covers. He should really maintain his bed better if he was going to start entertaining company.

Baz just watched, his gaze warm and appreciative; Simon could feel it linger on his biceps, his throat.

“All that time,” Simon started, and then shook his head. “No—not _all that time_ at all, but as much of it as I could admit to myself—when I was glaring daggers back at you, I was really just trying to figure out what you felt like.” He remembered Baz's dark eyes that never met his except to flash in anger, but that were rapt, almost dreamy, when focused on the books he read. He remembered watching through his lashes as Baz turned page after page, late into the cold nights, and the intensity with which he'd regard Simon before he left, in the early hours, to hunt in the forest. “At first, I think I wondered what it felt like to _be_ you—to be so strong and quick and agile—but now I see that really I just wanted to touch you. To hold you. To have you.”

Baz smiled at that. It was a slow smile that built downward from his forehead, through the spreading brows and softening eyes and lifting cheeks, so that by the time it reached his mouth, the lips were pretty much redundant.

“Have me, Snow,” he said.

“Come here, then.”

* * *

**Below**

Agatha could feel the magic returning to her mirror. She  _could_ . 

Maybe, somehow—she was nearly allowing herself to believe—the Humdrum was gone from Watford and magic had seeped back in. Sometimes she imagined she could even feel it dripping into the air around her, like damp mist from the Catacombs overhead.

Her only way to channel that magic would be through the mirror, and for all the days they'd been trapped down here, it had been just cold, inanimate silver and glass. Now, though, it was waking back up. Like the tingle when a numb arm refills with blood, the metal seemed to prickle and squirm against her through the gritty lining of her pocket, begging for her attention.

Her clothes were filthy. All eight of them trapped here must be filthy. They lived in dust; clouds of it hung in the air from the incessant scratching of the others carving into the rock walls and floor of their prison. No matter how many handsful the others dumped down the pit of the toilet, the dust still pervaded their lives in this room.

Crouching over her mirror, Agatha flipped it open once again. This time, Ag had actually lit a candle—one of their precious few remaining—and in its light, had checked that the others all seemed to be really asleep. She didn't want to get anyone's hopes up, especially Penny's, but with the mirror practically wriggling against her thigh, she was willing to take a chance.

When she'd tiptoed past the sleepers, she'd peeked at Niall's watch. It was late afternoon, late May. For a moment, she'd let her mind float to the bright day above, to the way slow clouds ambled high across the river. She could only think about this for a moment, though; she would  _not_ get sentimental.

When first opened, the mirror always acted like any other mirror; that is to say, it reflected light to create an image of the world in front of it, reversed. But after a moment, if the mirror was in the right hands, more details would resolve, like when you load an enormous jpeg over a slow connection and the blurriness slowly vanishes—except the reflection always felt sharp from the start, and these details were ones you wouldn't catch in a normal mirror. 

This mirror would show you your problems. The mirror tended to scold Agatha when her eyes were red and crumpled; “ _You need to sleep,_ ” it would say, or “ _No boy's worth worry lines,_ ” or “ _Pretty is as pretty does._ ”

It always knew. It had enjoyed taking the piss with Simon, who was an easy mark, pointing out his infrequent pocks and boils, or his kiss-darkened lips, with apparent glee. 

Come to think of it, Simon had appeared in the mirror an awful lot—even when he'd been on the far side of the room, the mirror would drag him into focus. Agatha smiled to herself now, remembering that. Clearly, the mirror had known: Simon didn't belong with her. The pair of them, together, had been a cosmic problem in need of righting.

Every now and then, she'd been able to coax her mirror into a second use, as well. This one was much trickier, as it required a complex grasp on the physics of light, but Agatha hadn't spent the last eight years at Southern England's finest school of magicks for naught: Sometimes, when she asked just right, she could get her mirror to swap reflections with another of its reflective kin.

She'd been discreet with her practise; she certainly didn't want to intrude on anyone in a compromising moment. Still, she'd managed to send friends messages this way a few times, by appearing suddenly in their own bedroom mirrors, and her “haunting” of the ornate mirror in the entry hall had been the star attraction of last year's All Hallows' Eve party. The younger students, especially, had screamed in delight as their reflections transfigured to an imperious, wild-eyed, ghostly Agatha.

In the light of the single candle, Agatha's reflection today didn't look nearly so awful as it had then. Her eyes were muddy in the darkness, and her skin waxen and drawn, but overall, she looked like herself. That was a relief. After three weeks in the oubliette, it was getting hard to believe she could still be the same person she once had been.

She stared into the mirror, willing it to be itself again, too. She couldn't possibly be imagining the strain in the carved silver against her palm, like molten earth on the verge of rupture. It must work again.

She watched and watched, excavating the depths of her own eyes, looking for any sign that the mirror was really waking up.  _Everything here is wrong!_ she thought.  _Everything's a problem. All you need to do is wake up and see it._

Her face looked wrecked, suddenly, hopeless. “ _Please_ ,” she whispered aloud. “ _Please._ ”

Agatha Wellbelove had never held much stock in miracles. Still, she would never manage to explain what happened next without using the word _miraculous_.

The fettered, ragged energy of the mirror seemed to surge together; the unstable metal firmed up against her hand, tightened, and the image began to change. The contrast of her reflection increased, till all she could see was one glistening tear locked in the corner of her eye.

Then, in that voice that she could never quite place—a voice that others claimed they couldn't hear, but that was far too real to exist only in her head—she heard the mirror speak: “ _A Wellbelove does not cry_ .”

Agatha drew a tremulous breath. She exhaled.  _Her mirror._

Working.

And with her mirror, she was never really alone.

“No,” she whispered back, taking a hard breath to keep the tears in check. “You're right, as always. We don't cry. We remedy.”

She wiped the tear away and the little round reflection cleared so that she could see her whole grimy face again. “ _Considering the circumstances,_ ” it whispered gently, “ _there is little else to say._ ”

She smiled affectionately at this: her constant companion, her instrument, her friend.

“ _I_ have something to say,” she said. “You're going to change my circumstances. I need you to find someone for me.”

She steadied herself against the stone wall at her back. In the mirror, she had the smug, stuffed smile of a person who has suddenly remembered that it is the world's job to give her whatever she asks.

“ _A good man is hard to find_ ,” she said, “But _please,_ mirror, show me Simon Snow.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Penelope's quotations include Evie Shockley's magnificent ["on new year's eve"](http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/244262), Shakespeare's [_Hamlet_](http://shakespeare.mit.edu/hamlet/hamlet.4.5.html), and [a bit of Sappho](https://books.google.com/books?id=3_aq2N2zJ6QC&lpg=PA116&ots=x1TsLJ3fDG&dq=words%20which%20I%20command%20are%20immortal%20sappho%20barnard&pg=PA10#v=onepage&q&f=false), trans. Mary Barnard.


	6. I Owe It All to You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this final chapter, there's some runaway magic, unintentional voyeurism, important reunions, and--yes--a little more dancing.

**Above**

In the first days after Baz had dispatched the Humdrum, the liberated magic had rampaged across Watford's campus. Carpets lifted under one's feet; centuries-old graffiti reappeared, crudely-sketched dragons roaring archaic profanities across students' bedroom walls; entire bedrooms and lecture halls relocated themselves. (The fifth-years had only just rediscovered their dormitory wing hiding behind the metallurgy shelves in the library, and no one really knew if they'd be able to move it back.) When Cook opened the oven to check on the dinner pasties, a pack of yeth hounds had swarmed out and terrorized the cafeteria for a good ten minutes before Professor Eccleston, the Chants instructor, took haphazard charge and organized the startled first- and second-years into banishing the scrabbly, headless beasts with a coordinated chorus of _All things go_.

Passing the ballroom on their way back from classes one afternoon, Simon was surprised to hear faint music emanating from within. Tugging Baz over by the sleeve, he ducked through the heavy wooden doors.

Inside, the instruments on the musicians' balcony were playing themselves, and judging from the dirge-like lament of the tone and the leaden slog of each bow across its strings, they had been at it for quite a while longer than they liked.

“Poor things!” Simon exclaimed, drawing his wand to liberate the instruments from their miserable enchantments.

Baz stopped his hand. “Not so hasty.”

“But the instruments?” Simon was pretty sure he could hear them whimpering. Had they been playing nonstop since days earlier when the magic returned?

Baz shook his head at Simon's naivete. “They're preying on your readiness to anthropomorphise. They can't be tired; they're wood and horn and string—this is what they were made to do.”

Simon looked pityingly at the grim, playerless orchestra. “But still, there's no need for them to keep—“

“Oh, but there is,” Baz interrupted. “You owe me a dance, Snow.”

Simon objected to this. “We _did_ dance, Tyrannus. You can't have forgotten. There was a forced proposal, followed by some mockery and grappling, and then kissing in the dark, and an ill-timed reunion with my nemesis...”

“We danced _once_ ,” Baz corrected. “You promised me two.”

Simon cocked his head. “Prove it.”

Baz chuckled. Reaching deep into the inner pocket of his jacket, he produced a small rectangular packet wrapped in a handkerchief. Accepting the offering, Simon peered inside. It was a flat blue booklet—the dance card from the Eighth-Year Ball, so many long weeks ago.

On the cream-colored lining paper, below the Watford crest, Baz had written his own name in clear, strong strokes. Opposite, in the same bold hand, was the list of Baz's partners: Elspeth, Agatha, Irati, Raj, Saskia, Dearbhail, Fiona, Carys, Simon.

And a second time, in the slot for the tenth: _Simon Oliver Snow_.

“You've got me,” Simon shrugged, trying to ignore the pang at seeing his own name, twice, in full, in Baz's hand. It felt like an affirmation; he still wanted too much.

Also, there was something else about the card that made him feel uneasy. Clumsily, he returned it, and Baz tucked it safely away again in his pocket.

Baz lifted his wand like a conductor's baton and the music halted. Simon could hear the instruments' relief in the silence that followed, but it wasn't to last—Baz flicked the tip of the wand, and, grudgingly, they began to play again. The room filled with the wistful, lilting strains of the Shostakovich waltz that had been their first dance.

Baz lifted his hands to Simon.

“ _Shall we dance?_ ” he asked.

“What does that spell do?” Simon asked, the memory forcing him to hesitate. “Is it something to do with footing?”

Baz laughed. “It's not magic, you nutter. It's a common courtesy.”

“Are you sure? Because I never know what to do with my feet when I dance, but when I was dancing with you that time...well, we were perfect.”

“Snow,” Baz asked, incredulous brow lifting skyward, “did you ever consider that I might just be very good at this?”

“But even _I_ was perfect.”

“All you had to do was follow.” Baz raised his arms again, the request unspoken this time, and Simon stepped forward into his firm embrace.

Baz was right. With the right partner, it was simple. All he had to do was follow.

* * *

As they spun across the floor, Simon thought back to Baz's dance programme. Something there had been unsettling... He spooled back through the list of names. Oh. Right.

“Did you actually dance with Raj?” Simon asked, recalling.

He did not like this at all. Raj had been listed for Baz's fourth dance, when Simon was too busy accompanying Agatha to observe anyone else, so at least he hadn't had to watch. Still, he remembered how the jealousy had consumed him that night when he'd seen Baz's hand on a pretty girl's back—the thought of him leading another _boy_ , as he now gripped Simon, made Simon want to punch something till his fist bled.

“It's not so shocking,” Baz said mildly. “He and I have a history.”

Simon goggled. Baz never volunteered information about his past romances.

“What?” Simon shook his head to clear it out. “When?”

“Seventh year, mostly.”

“But what about Agatha?”

“Raj and I were on and off, as were Agatha and I. As were Agatha and _you_.”

They kept dancing; the enchanted instruments seemed to sob with the effort as the music swelled.

Baz's voice was light and teasing. “Surprised, Snow, that he would stoop to my level?”

“Gods, no.” No one was above Baz. Honestly, who of his classmates _wouldn't_ have jumped at the chance? But why did it have to be Raj? Simon had some serious objections.

First off, they'd been tennis partners all of last year; Simon was more than a little stung that Raj had never even hinted that he and Baz had been going at it. Wasn't there a brotherhood of the courts?

And second, they'd been tennis partners _all of last year_ , so Simon could say, with absolute objectivity, that Raj was uniformly stunning at all levels of dress or sweatiness. It was unsettling to imagine him and Baz—

“Keep your frame,” Baz interrupted, sharply. “Look me in my eyes. Resist me.”

It felt like a challenge. Baz always did.

* * *

In the next dance, Baz yielded; he allowed Simon to lean gently against him, and the precision of his steps slurred into a softly bobbing stroll. In the mirrors, armies of Simons clutched armies of composed but fond reflections of Baz. Simon remembered the night of the ball—he hadn't even been able to see the other dancers, his thoughts were so tangled in Baz. And now, here they were, _together_ , just them. It seemed impossible.

“What would we have done afterward?” Simon murmured into Baz's shoulder. There was no context, but Baz understood:

“If the Humdrum hadn't come?”

“Right.”

“Well, the candles wouldn't have been doused, so we wouldn't have had the benefit of dark to prompt swift decisions.”

“I know _that,_ ” Simon said, annoyed. “That's why I'm asking. What if we hadn't kissed then? What if the lights had stayed on, and we danced the dances. Would we have then bowed and walked away to our own friends and drunk lukewarm lemon squash and pretended nothing had happened?”

“Remind me what was happening,” Baz prompted. “Before the lights went out.”

“You were roaring at me about my frame, like a bloody tyrant, so I was trying and failing to wrench your arms loose in retribution. And then somehow we were staring at each other.”

“Like this?” Abruptly, Baz's arms stiffened, pulling Simon's lower back in and lifting his shoulders up and away so that Simon couldn't _not_ look him in the centers of his charcoal eyes. Simon looked back, not blinking until his eyes started to water and it seemed maybe a little creepy, and then, even so, blinking as quick as his lids would flick, unwilling to separate this gaze.

“Like this,” Simon agreed slowly.

“Oh, my Snow.” Baz's eyes didn't move from his, but they warmed, black fire at their hearts. “Only a fool could walk away from this.”

“You always call _me_ a fool.”

“You often deserve it. Would you have walked away?”

“I hope not.”

“So do I,” Baz said softly, and maintaining this eye contact was beginning to require a whole different kind of bravery than Simon was used to. “But if you had, I would have followed.”

There was no darkness now. Beams of pale light filtered through the high windows that lined the wall to the small lawn and gardens. Sunlit dust glittered in the dozens of mirrors.

“Baz,” Simon said, “consider this fair warning that I'm about to neglect my frame.”

* * *

**Below**

“ _Please,_ mirror,” Agatha had asked, “show me Simon Snow.”

At first, all she could see was the light. It didn't look to be a particularly sunny day, perhaps even a bit dismal out, but in this dark chamber, the little round reflection of daylight in her mirror was brighter than anything she could remember. For a minute, she just blinked, her eyes adjusting. Then she realised what she was looking at.

_Alpha et Omega._

It was bad enough that she'd had to hear Penny and Osiris—and since then, most of the others in the oubliette—in their pursuits of the flesh. So many grunts and whimpers in the dark—but at least it had _been_ dark, at least there hadn't been anything to see. Now, though, there was _this_ : in the tiny window of her mirror, two of her ex-boyfriends, groping and grinding against each other. 

The reflection of Simon slammed Basil against an ornate stone column—well, she assumed it was Basil; it was hard to see around Simon's broad back in its green school jacket, but the long fingers grabbing at Simon's hair looked familiar. Where were they? The chapel? The ballroom? The image was too small to see clearly, but regardless of location, a few things were obvious: from the way the boys were arching and bending, it certainly seemed that Simon's hands were on their way to Basil's zipper, and also that Basil was apprehensive, looking around as if someone might walk in and discover them at any moment.

Fumbling, they crashed around to the other side of the column, and Agatha's view shifted. She was looking from the perspective of a different mirror now. This was definitely the ballroom; she could see the leaded windows' glow in the background.

Up close, Simon and Basil's heads filled the space, Simon gripping Basil's shoulders, his lips frantic against Basil's inclined throat. From the way his mouth was rounding and half-closing, in the tortured shapes of empty vowels, Basil might well be mewling.

 _Did you do this when_ I _was touching you?_ Agatha wondered, only a little bitterly. She was pretty sure she knew the answer. 

But he was so arresting in his abandon; surely it wasn't unkind to wish she'd been able to bring him the same wanton pleasure.

Then she felt guilty. Even if it wasn't exactly unkind, it was definitely selfish. Basil would never reveal so much if he thought anyone could see. She really oughtn't to be watching.

Simon's hands slid down the fitted green wool of Basil's lapels. One disappeared from her view and Basil's lids tumbled closed. He was mouthing words now—slow, thick-throated consonants—Simon's kisses burrowing deep into his jawline.

Feeling a tremor of chagrin, Agatha shook herself. Her job was to get their attention.

She set the mirror on the floor a few feet ahead of herself and lifted the candle. Waving it back and forth, she thought, might catch an eye.

It took some time. Simon had just ducked down out of the mirror's frame— _Crowley_ , she ought to look away—when Basil's eyes finally opened a smidge. Satisfied that Simon couldn't see him do it, he smiled briefly and was about to drift into the darkness of his own closed eyelids once again when, _Aleister almighty_ , he finally seemed to notice that the mirror in front of him reflected not a tall boy about to conduct what amounted to quite a few simultaneous violations of the Watford Behaviour Code, but instead, like a ghost risen from the grave, the dust-stained, fire-lit visage of Agatha Wellbelove.

In anyone else, his reaction would have been comical; in Basil, it seemed fitting. There was no visible surprise, no blush—not even a flicker of annoyance. Instead, like a man-at-arms, Basil drew himself improbably straight, saying something sudden and stern to Simon, who had the decency to jump away, red-faced, while Basil tugged his cuffs and lapel back into position.

“Oh my good gods,” Simon was saying, gaping at the mirror. Agatha couldn't hear him, of course, but Simon's disheveled thoughts spilled across his face like pigments. “I haven't thought … She … Where … My … _How_ could I …When did we last … Have _you_ seen her since … ?”

Basil reached a hand to still him.

“Hello, Agatha,” he said to the mirror.

Agatha did not feel great about the way her eyes prickled at the address. It wasn't about Basil, she supposed, as much as it was about a _person_ , out in the world, acknowledging that she still existed. (But it was a _little_ bit about Basil. He was so slim, so brilliant, so severely decorous in his greeting.) It was like a tiny stopper had tugged away to free her deeper feelings. She bit the side of her tongue hard so that she wouldn't blub.

“Hello,” she mouthed back. She hadn't forgotten that the others were still sleeping in breathy lumps all around her.

Beside Basil, Simon was more or less foaming at the mouth. When he started to talk, his words, if they were indeed words, were incomprehensible to Agatha, who gazed blankly upon his torrent of gesticulations. Unfortunately, instead of deterring him, her obvious lack of understanding led him to increasingly convoluted efforts that made even less sense. Agatha tried to convey this with a series of broad shrugs, and finally just turned her attention back to Basil.

Basil rolled his eyes briefly and, wrapping an arm around Simon's shoulders, said something short and effective into his ear. Simon calmed down. (The way he looked up at Basil, Agatha thought, was even better than the kissing. She wished she could write that reverent gaze down so that she could revisit it in a quiet minute.)

(Or maybe, once she was free of this dungeon, she'd rather never have a quiet minute again.)

Basil was saying something, slow and patient, but it was hard to be sure of the words. This time, Simon seemed to sense Agatha's confusion; he disappeared from view for a moment and reappeared with a notebook. In it, backward, she saw the scribbled words, “ARE YOU ALL RIGHT?”

She laughed. She hadn't meant to, but the question shook loose another of the stoppers within her and the laughter burbled out in hot gushes. Was she _all right_? Well, she was alive, and she was not in pain or starving, so she supposed she was all right in body, but good _Godwin_ , she hadn't realised her own depths of terror. In a rush, the fear that she'd been suppressing swept through her, emerging in great gulping sobs. She clutched at her mouth, aware again of the others sleeping around her. They didn't seem to notice. Agatha took a breath and wiped her eyes.

In the little mirror, Simon and Basil were staring at her, concerned.

She tried to smile. “Yes,” she said silently, nodding. “Yes, I am all right.”

Simon held up the notebook again: “WHERE ARE YOU?”

She turned to the wall then, and, tugging a pin loose from her hair, scratched a word backward into the soft rock: OUBLIETTE.

* * *

**Above**

Simon felt rather a dunce. Of course he should have been writing backward—mirror and all. His handwriting was bad enough forward; “impenetrable,” Professor Benedict liked to say. Then Agatha's message sunk in and he stopped thinking about himself.

He spun toward Baz, horrified.

“The oubliette!”

Baz looked thoroughly confused.

“I've never heard of it. Do you know where it is, Snow?”

“It's at the deepest part of the Catacombs,” Simon said. “Penny told me about it, years ago. Most people don't even know it's there. It's magical, of course—eons-old, medieval-style magic. It's supposed to make people forget about whoever's …” He caught himself. What was he even saying? “Oh, _sweet Swedenborg_.” What total idiocy to have missed this, to have entirely missed the absence of the most important friend he'd ever had. Simon scrabbled with the notebook. His backward-writing was even scrawlier, plus he was shaking now, and he had to scratch it out twice before he got a roughly-legible version for Agatha: “IS PENNY WITH YOU???”

(Even after three tries, the interrogatives faced forward as usual; he wasn't some sort of shape-shifter.)

In the mirror, Agatha's hand scratched a list:

     8 HERE:  
     AGATHA  
     PENELOPE  
     OSIRIS  
     LUCINDA  
     CARYS  
     FIONA  
     GEORGIANA  
     NIALL

“I'm staggered,” Baz said, rather faintly. “We all forgot.”

Simon was already writing another message. “WE ARE COMING NOW.” He underlined the NOW.

Agatha turned the mirror on herself again. When she smiled, she was as lovely as ever, hang the grime. She was saying something; it appeared to be, “I won't go anywhere.”

Simon grabbed Baz by the sleeve and tugged him across the ballroom.

“Wait, Snow, I'm still trying to piece this together.”

“No, Baz, there'll be time to ponder the nuances of our fickle memories later, but right now, we've just got to hurry. Let's get to it!”

Baz shambled along for a moment, but then stopped hard in the middle of the ballroom. He looked shell-shocked.

“Get to what, Snow?” he asked, blinking. The dust motes around his black hair sparkled like magic.

“What do you _think_?” Simon asked, grabbing his wrist more firmly this time and stepping toward him. “What were we _just_ doing?”

A slow smile nudged at Baz's mouth.

Simon's eyes twinkled.

“I _thought_ you'd remember.” Damn the giant room, he reached straight for the tucked-in placket of Baz's white shirt and tugged it free so that he could slip a hand underneath, against the soft bumps of Baz's ribcage and downward, past the snug, flat waist of his trousers.

Baz's nose nuzzled into the side of Simon's hair; his breath tickled Simon's ear. It was so much Baz at once. It always was.

Simon remembered now that they'd been about to leave, and for good reason: “We'd better get to the room.”

“Do we really _need_ to, though?” Baz's voice was rough and close. “Couldn't we just …” His words trailed off as Simon's thumb flitted a particularly intriguing path below his clothing.

“We need to.” Simon's voice was firm; he was digging deep for resolve, because he didn't actually have much problem with the idea of ballroom sex, but there was a nagging sensation just under his brain that made him pretty sure he'd felt strongly about the need to leave the ballroom a minute ago. He wanted to do right by one-minute-ago Simon. “Let's go.”

Pulling his hands away from Baz, he pivoted to lead them out the grand doors.

And yelled in surprise.

Directly in front of him, arms crossed in the middle of an enormous, gilt-scrolled mirror, an unimpressed Agatha Wellbelove was shaking her head and giggling.

Everything poured back over him like cold mud. Gods. They had forgotten again in _seconds_.

“Stand back!” Baz said, and Simon startled away. Baz's wand was drawn and pointing at the mirror.

“Baz!” Simon shouted. “It's an illusion! She's not _in_ it! There's no need to threaten violence or ...”

“ _Seven years' bad luck_ ,” Baz whispered, and the mirror shot to fragments. They tumbled and clinked and shattered further on the floor.

Simon didn't understand, but Baz looked rather grim and serious, so he stood back for a moment and watched while Baz brought back out his handkerchief, which he used to wrap the edge of a saucer-sized chunk of the mirror-glass, and picked it up. Inside the little mirror, Simon could see Agatha's nod of approval.

“Let's try this again, shall we?” Baz asked, holding the mirror before him like a map.

* * *

**Below**

With Agatha guiding them, the twisting journey into the depths of the Catacombs was quick work, and they were able to stop at precisely the right spot.

The lowest point in the Catacombs was entirely unremarkable. The tunnel here was comfortably broad and tall, the floor plain and devoid of tripping hazards, any destination of note clearly ahead or behind. (The tunnels didn't end there, of course; instead, they began to gently rise again toward the tightest, trickiest, least accessible sections, where an adventurer might find the most secret places—the Dragons' Crypt and the Tombs of the Three Mages.)

The only feature one might stop to examine was the circular iron grate—not unlike dozens of other grates set into the long tunnels' floors—in the middle of the path.

Or one might stop if following a small person in a mirror who was now waving wildly with both hands: Stop.

When they did, she turned the mirror.

“WAIT,” she had scratched into the wall. “GO BACK. GET A LADDER.”

Simon laughed at this. Stooping, he wrenched up the heavy round grate and rolled it aside.

“Got a bit of light down there?” he bellowed into the hole.

Below, a handful of small torches and candles flared—enough that he could see, clumped twenty feet down in a soupy haze of magical interference, eight anxious faces beaming expectantly up at him.

He knew what they were seeing: a heroic rescuer, strong and bright and daring. He also knew, at once, that this image was both patently untrue and totally indelible. His friends would always trust that he'd rescue them, even when the real hero here was Agatha, even when all he'd done was succumb to the same magic as everyone else, forgetting them for weeks and weeks while he lost himself to love. For no good reason, they'd overlook those weeks; they'd just remember the moment he showed up, like a golden angel of salvation, to release them from the pit.

He didn't deserve their loyalty, but he had it anyway.

Gulping back a wail of thanks for the entirely unreasonable gift of friendship, Simon tossed down a wobbly grin. In the hole, someone was crying—the muted sobs echoed tinnily off the enchanted rock. They needed him now.

“Simon!” Agatha shouted up, although the sound took quite a while to travel through the magical fields that separated them. “I _said_ bring a ladder!”

Simon laughed. “Who needs a ladder when you've got a friend?” He paused, reaching for his pocket. “And, I suppose, a wand.”

Behind him, Baz was almost certainly rolling his eyes. Also, quite likely, training his own wand on Simon, whose precarious angle over the opening to the oubliette was just the sort of risky maneuver that galled Baz to the bone.

Through the thick, dark fog, Simon pointed his wand at Penelope, round-faced and wide-eyed in her trust.

“ _Up, up and away!_ ” he said, and—very slowly, Simon fighting the oubliette's sludgy resistance for every vertical inch—up she rose.

* * *

When they were all finally huddled in the tunnel (Agatha had insisted that Simon wait to lift her till last, so that no one could be forgotten), and the grate had been replaced (by Carys and Niall, as Simon's wand-arm was dead as Demosthenes from the effort of lifting eight people through the quicksand air of the oubliette), the grave silence that had somehow pervaded the entire rescue suddenly fell away into volleys of chatter and tears and noisy kissing.

Penelope had her arms tight around Simon and was crowing, “You saved us, Simon! You _rescued_ us, oh, I shouldn't be surprised, and I'm not surprised, but I'd also, just … just, stopped _expecting_ it.”

Simon hugged her back as close as he could with his good arm; his right arm would probably hang useless at his side for days, but he'd refused to let Baz lift anyone out. (Baz's brow had dipped low with concern at Simon's grimaces and straining muscles, and he had even sworn at Simon for his obstinacy in declining help, but he was wrong: this wasn't pigheadedness—it was a tiny stab at recompense.) The Humdrum had led them here, looking just like Simon; Simon needed to be the one to pull them free.

* * *

**Above**

Later, after the winding walk out, and eight simultaneous crying jags at emerging in the cathedral to find pink and amber evening sunlight streaming through the stained glass; after baths and fresh clothing, and a celebratory welcome feast on the Great Lawn; after the establishment of a professorial commission to explore the possibility of paving over, or at least removing the enchantments on, the Watford oubliette; and after the rescued parties had retold their story dozens of times to flabbergasted throngs by crackling firelight in the eighth-years' parlour, Baz came to reclaim his boyfriend.

Snow was flopped across the better part of a sofa with his head in Penelope's lap; she was petting his hair absentmindedly while holding an eager, whispered conversation with Osiris, who sat snug against her side, and who was studying her left hand, which he held gently in his own, as raptly as if he'd never observed human anatomy in the wild before.

His tousled head nestled against Penelope's jumper, Snow looked both very comfortable and vaguely put out.

Baz watched from the doorway for a long moment, laughing inwardly. Though Snow would deny it to the death, he hated to be less than the full focus of anyone's attention. _God is Change_ , Baz thought, _even for Simon Snow._

The crowd was thinning now; it was past midnight, and especially after a day of such hubbub, the school must eventually quiet down. Escorted by a solicitous Archie Firestein, Agatha gave Baz a carefully neutral nod as she slipped past him out the door.

Baz crossed the room to stand at the end of the long sofa.

“Bunce, Wallis” he interrupted, “I hope you won't be too distraught if I drag Snow away.”

Penelope looked up and caught his eye. Through the purple glasses, her gaze was warm and penetrating; you could practically see the flywheels spinning inside, cogitating on a dozen problems at once—none too large, none too small. It might have the first time the two of them had ever really looked at each other with anything but animosity.

“I think I'll survive without him until tomorrow.” She wrinkled her nose in a smirk. It was rather cute. “If only just.”

Looking petulant, Snow allowed Baz to pull him to sitting (by his left arm, of course). He pecked Penelope on the cheek, gripped Osiris briefly by the shoulder, and reluctantly followed Baz to the hallway.

Once out of the parlour, Baz took hold of Snow's shoulders to look at him directly.

“Bearing up all right, Snow? I thought those two might appreciate a little time alone.”

Snow shook his head slowly. “Is it odd that I'm jealous?”

“You're her best friend. It might be odder if you weren't.”

The hurt showed proud and square in Snow’s scowl. “It's not just that I'm jealous about Osiris—although I am that, for all he's a fine bloke.” He paused to think it over, puffing his cheeks a bit, then confessed in a rush: “Thing is, I wish I'd been down there with them. I ought to have been there. I hate that they've all had this grand adventure without me.”

That deserved at least a bit of a sneer. “Because you're entitled to a share of every adventure?”

Grimacing, Snow shook his head; then, probably realizing his own ridiculousness, he chuckled. “Particularly the mucky ones. Look at me, Baz. I wasn't made for the sidelines.”

If Snow were a little less guilelessly beautiful, a little less foolhardy and earnest, Baz might be able to laugh at this. As it was—as Snow was, of course, right—it took some effort for Baz to even roll his eyes.

“In that case, I'm sorry to have torn you away from your wallow,” Baz drawled. “Would you prefer to return and hear further details of your friends' pluck?”

Under his hands, Snow's shoulders tightened again at the teasing, then relaxed. “No, I've had my fill. I'm actually glad you came for me. There's something we've left unfinished.”

Baz, who had been hoping for an imminent return to their bedroom, racked his brain. What loose ends remained?  


Oh, come on. “ _Don't_ tell me we need to go back to the ballroom. If you're still on about the blasted instruments …” When he and Snow tore out of the ballroom for the oubliette that afternoon, they'd abandoned the enchanted orchestra midway through Shostakovich's jazz suites. The cranky violins and cellos were likely laboring through the concertos or symphonies by now.

“No, you were right about those. Playing _is_ their work, after all. They can wait till morning.” Muscular right arm hanging loose and ornamental at his side, Simon Snow wrapped his left hand around Baz's neck and pulled his head in close. “I wouldn't say the ballroom's such a _bad_ idea, though. I mean, it's not as though this matter of business requires a specific location.”

“Then what _does_ it require?” Baz murmured into the soft tickle of that unruly hair.

“Just _this_.” Snow smiled lazily, mere millimeters beyond the end of Baz's nose. Baz lifted his hands from Snow to the stone wall on either side of Snow's head, as if to establish some pretense of equal control, but they both knew the truth: he was Snow's, and Snow's alone, and Snow was always the hero of the story. He held all the strings.

Snow's lips were on him, then, and his on Snow's, and for all that both boys cared about a great many other things in this, their world, those were entirely irrelevant to the matter at hand.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FYI, it's [this Shostakovich waltz](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UIHl0oJEpg) (exact title somewhat disputed), which, while not Baz's _absolute_ favorite of the composer's works, is still pretty damn compelling dance music.


End file.
